A team of scientists from the United States and China have experimented in creating an array that can sense pressure similar to the interpretation of touch on your fingertips. This experiment could lead to further development of artificial skin which would be able to “feel.” Even robots could have a sense of touch with these sensors.

Each array built by researchers consists of 8,000 transistors made up of bundles on zinc oxide nanowires. When these transistors are placed under mechanical strain they produce an electrical signal.

Professor Zhong Lin Wang at the Georgia Institute of Technology said:

Any mechanical motion, such as the movement of arms or the fingers of a robot, could be translated to control signals.

This could make artificial skin smarter and more like the human skin. It would allow the skin to feel activity on the surface.

The researchers at Georigia Insitute of Technology developed the device with “tiny polarisation charges when so-called ‘piezoelectric’ materials such as zinc oxide are moved or placed under strain.” This technique only works in material that have certain properties, and this is why they have used nanowires. They have piezoelectric and semiconducting properties.

Professor Wang said:

This is a fundamentally new technology that allows us to control electronic devices directly using mechanical agitation.

This could be used in a broad range of areas, including robotics, (very small devices known as MEMS), human-computer interfaces and other areas that involve mechanical deformation.

[Source: BBC News]